Professions

Archaeology

Archaeology is the study of the life and culture of ancient peoples through material remains - in game terms, digging up old fragments and sticking them together to make artifacts from various races. This pursuit is mostly for lore purposes, but there are a number of rare items such as pets and mounts which can be attained from the ancient bits of the past.

Dwarves have a natural affinity for digging and lore, which translates to a +15 bonus to Archaeology skill as well as slightly faster surveying.

To start your hobby as an archaeologist, you must achieve a minimum of Level 20 and then learn how to identify and survey ancient dig sites. To do this, you will need to find an archaeology trainer. You can ask guards in the capital cities to find the location of trainers. Harrison Jones in the Library Wing of Stormwind Keep, Belloc Brightblade in Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar, or Dariness the Learned in the Legerdemain Lounge of Dalaran are convenient choices. You will learn the Surveying skill, which you should drag to a toolbar to keep it handy. You will also need to revisit a trainer to learn higher levels of the skill.

Archaeology has different level requirements than other professions:

Rank

Min Level

Skill Range

Cost

Apprentice

20

0-75

10 sp

Journeyman

20

50-150

10 sp

Expert

20

125-225

10 sp

Artisan

35

200-300

2.5 gp

Master

50

275-375

10 gp

Grand Master

65

350-450

15 gp

Illustrious Grand Master

75

425-525

25 gp

Three dig sites near the west coast of Kalimdor!

Now when you open your world map, you can find dig sites that will hold likely fragments of the past. Zoom to the continent level, and you should see four dig sites marked (little hills with a red flag). There will always be four dig sites at any time. Travel to one of the areas indicated on the map. When you reach the zone, your zone map will show the dig site as a grayish area (highlights in red). Make your way to the dig site and use your Surveying skill.
This will display a small surveying scope and a signal strength indicator. The scope shows the direction to a find - the large end points in the approximate direction (as if the scope were being used to look at the location of the find). The indicator shows red for a distant find, yellow for a closer find (<50 yards), green for a close (<20 yards) find. Just survey, head off in the direction indicated by the scope, resurvey, and fine tune your direction. When you're within 10 yards or so of the find, surveying will uncover it. Right-click on the ground-spawned object to recover fragments from the find. Note that when your indicator shows green, the scope direction is accurate. You can note the line of sight of the scope, step a few paces to side, and resurvey to hopefully get another green vector that you can use to triangulate the position. This can reduce the number of green surveys you need to do to just a couple with practice. Once you've collected your fragments, resurvey and repeat. Each dig site holds three finds. Another dig site will respawn when you clear your current one. It is possible (though unlikely) for a dig site to respawn in the same location.

Looting a find earns you fragments which can be combined into artifacts. You start finding 2 fragments per find and add additional fragments every 75 levels of Archaeology (so a L75 Archaeologist will receive 3 fragments per find). At higher levels, you may retrieve up to 6 fragments from a find. You may also find keystones which are used to help assemble more complex artifacts. Keystones may be used to replace up to 12 fragments in an artifact, but only if the artifact is complex enough to have one or more keystone slots. In the artifact list below, the keystone item indicates the number of keystones which may be used to complete that artifact. Fragments belong to either fossils or a specific race. As you collect fragments, you can look at your journal (accessed by clicking on the Archaeology skill in your spellbook Professions tab) to see how much progress you've made towards completing an artifact.
You cannot choose the artifact you're working on. You will be assigned one artifact per race at a time. As you build more and more complex artifacts, the number of fragments required to complete an artifact increases - initially, common-level artifacts take around 30 fragments. The type of fragments you find depends on the continent. Generally, you are only given dig sites in areas level-appropriate to your character. At lower skill levels, you are only able to survey Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms; additional sites open with higher levels. Fossils may be found on any continent that you can survey.

Level

Race

Locations

1

Fossil

All

1

Dwarf

Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor (limited)

1

Night Elf

Kalimdor

1

Troll

Eastern Kingdoms

300

Draenei

Outland

300

Orc

Outland

375

Nerubian

Northrend

375

Vrykul

Northrend

375

Troll

Northrend

450

Tol'vir

Kalimdor (Uldum)

450

Night Elf

Eastern Kingdoms (Hyjal, Vash'jir)

Note that reaching L450 merely adds the possibility that finds will spawn in Uldum, Hyjal, or Vash'jir. The finds may still respawn at any other site spot in their respective continents.

Skilling Up

Initially, your primary skill increases will be from collecting fragments. You should do this until you aren't gaining additional skill points; from a practical point of view, this will get you all the way to L75 or higher. Assembling artifacts gains 5 skill points. Since the number of fragments needed increases as you accumulate artifacts, the quickest progression is by alternating continents to be building artifacts with the lowest fragment requirement. Initial items are common quality (vendor trash) and may be sold. This is designed to be an extra pursuit to do while you quest - just keep an eye out for nearby dig sites. Since dig sites are limited to zones your character can handle, it's likely that they'll be in places you're questing, especially for low-level toons. If you're setting out to just dig for a while, start with dig sites as far north or south on the continent and move towards the center. This increases the chance that the dig sites will be spawning along your travel route. Leveling this skill is time-consuming, and most of the rewards are of limited value other than the lore, but there are pets and mounts that can't be obtained any other way, so there are some bragging rights at stake here.

[B2A] [U]-Equipped, Int: 321, Equip: Recaptures 20% of all the mana you spend on spells, and stores it within the doll to be released at a later time. Up to a maximum of 4200 mana can be stored, Use: Releases all mana stored within the doll, causing you to gain that much mana, and all enemies within 15 yards take 1 point of Arcane damage for each point of mana released. (1 Min Cooldown) 150xNight Elf Fragment, 3xHighborne Scroll

[BoP] Use: Teleports you exactly where you want to go... if you aren't too picky. (12 Hours Cooldown) "One of the few things the draenei were able to take with them on their flight from Argus." 130xDraenei Fragment, 3xDraenei Tome